


Reunion

by darkinboi



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Gen, Hugging, darkins but soft, doing riot's work, little bit of OOC, soft darkins, when is varus getting a proper rework?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23612962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkinboi/pseuds/darkinboi
Summary: After thousands of years spent alone, the darkins find each other again.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 54





	Reunion

When someone finds you for the first time, you want to make the most out of it. It’s an opportunity you might never have again. A chance at the slightest bit of freedom, a sense of what feels like clarity replacing the pain and the raging emotions thumping against your head. You want to make the most out of it but you can’t; you are too hungry, too deprived. After staying so long in the dark, existing in numbness, simply being in the world is a sensory overload. All you can do is take, take, take, one more step, just one more breath, and before you realize the mortal body is burned out and you are shoved back into the dark.  
You don’t even need to hate mortals for it. Revenge is something you have to think about. And thinking comes after you’re past the first trauma of being reborn in flesh again, after you can keep yourself from consuming out of pure instinct to survive. After you stopped screaming.  
The world rejected darkins once and it continues to reject them every time they try to step back into it. Every host lost, possession failed is a cruel punch to the gut, a reminder that this world doesn’t need them. If it didn’t get just a tiny bit better each time, there would be no point in trying at all. But they can improve. Feel stronger, feel slightly closer to who they once were, during a time that none of these mortals remember. The world forgot them, every drop of blood and sweat and sacrifice. Now they are a nuisance, parasites, monsters, or just a source of power to exploit. Nobody has to say it out loud, they can feel it when they get a glimpse of a mortal mind.  
That is why, when Aatrox encounters another darkin, he has no idea what to say or how to feel. He stopped talking to his hosts a long time ago, and when he does choose to speak to mortals, his words are filled with the same pain and anger that is always on his mind. All humans are the same to him, and none of them deserve more than to be cut down by his blade.  
But this is a friend that stands before him. Oh, how he didn’t think of that word in a long, long time. It feels foreign. He would never forget his brothers, the ones who shared the same cruel fate as him, ones he fought so many battles with, side by side. But the more he wandered this world alone, the more certain he became that he would never meet them again. Every good thing in his life was taken away, why would this be the one that gets to remain? It has to be a trick, or a hallucination - but it isn’t, he feels the familiar warmth as the other approaches, and the voice in his mind is unmistakable.  
“Aatrox. It really is you”, Varus greets him. It’s still not enough time for the other darkin to organize his thoughts.  
“You changed a lot” he comments without thinking.  
“You haven’t at all.” the archer replies, his voice slightly hurt.  
Neither of them can really wrap their heads around this. In a way it feels natural, they are still friends and are close. But it has just been so terribly long. What was there before all this pain began? Varus tries to remember, tries to relive the feeling. A memory comes back to him, a foggy image of sunlit Shurima. They’re all there together, feeling proud. But a question appears in his mind, an uninvited thought.  
_What is that?_ Kai asks. The memory disappears in an instant, like a bubble, and Varus feels the anger rise in him again. He cannot believe that he almost managed to forget about the present, even for a moment.  
He pushes the voices in the back of his mind and focuses on Aatrox instead. The presence of the other darkin seems to scare his hosts to the point that he can almost feel his body shaking. He thinks it’s a pleasant feeling, but as far as darkins know, ‘pleasant’ means that the pain is just less than usual.  
“I’m glad I found you,” Varus says. “I had a feeling that if anyone, you would survive.”  
“I really wish I didn’t”, Aatrox replies, and the gloomy air shifts by a noticeable amount. Varus remembers Aatrox having a sense of humor, but it really doesn’t feel appropriate to think about that.  
“But we are here now”, the other continues. “and if there is anything left for us to do in this world, is to destroy it all.”  
“If we could protect it once, we can end it all the same” Varus grins and is immediately annoyed because again, there is something prodding at the back of his mind.  
Every time he kills or thinks of destruction, his hosts resist with all they can and these ugly thoughts keep flooding his mind. They tell him what he’s doing is wrong. That he’s evil. They tell him that he should disappear. _Of course mortals would think we are in the wrong. You would also think your thoughts matter,_ he replies to them. The darkins’ rage was justified. The fact that humans didn’t even try to understand it just made him despise them even more. _You are the ones who need to be destroyed!_ he hears the trembling cry coming from within. Well, that’s one thing they can agree on.  
His thoughts are interrupted by Aatrox’s claws on his shoulder. To Varus’s surprise, he pulls him into an embrace. So many things flash through his mind that for now, he decides to not think at all and instead just hug Aatrox back. It’s strange, holding a brother in one hand and a weapon in the other. But it’s how they’ve always lived.  
“I’m also glad to see you again.”  
Long moments pass before they let go. The first time Aatrox eases his hold on the other, he thinks about being all alone like he was until now, and pulls Varus back against his chest for a little longer. The night forest around them feels cold afterwards, but some of the warmth remains permanently. They feel it as they leave the clearing to move on, Varus leading the way. It’s as if a small part of their former self has been restored.  
It takes quite some time for Aatrox to realize they aren’t simply going nowhere. There is a sensation coming from not so far away. A heartbeat. Two heartbeats. The closer they get, the more they feel a distant gaze on themselves too.  
It’s Rhaast. It has to be. Aatrox quickens his steps as he realizes, the other darkin right behind him. How has he not sensed him before? Is it just a matter of distance, or is it because he really didn’t believe any other darkin was still alive? Either way he felt his senses sharper than ever before, drawing him closer and closer until he hears a human voice and he stops dead in his tracks, hand on the hilt of his sword, and he’s listening.  
“Look, Rhaast, I know you’re leading me into a trap. I can tell there’s something nearby and I’m not going any further.” A pause. “Even if that was true, you all would just kill me.”  
The two darkins walk closer and spot the young man, standing on a tree branch, scythe in hand.  
“Well, they’re here now so do me a favor and don’t run away screaming” comes a low, muffled voice that they don’t hear with their ears as much as just feel it echo in their mind.  
Kayn has no intention of doing that, but he still feels his body shake a little bit when he lays eyes on the other two darkins. It’s clear those hosts are not like him, if they’re still there at all. He wonders if that’s how he would look if Rhaast took over him.  
“Are you sure they’re just here to talk?” he asks as he lands on the grass below, feeling fairly uncomfortable at the two weapons aimed at him.  
“They’re here for me, not for you.”  
“Fine.” he huffs, stabbing the scythe into the ground so it’s standing up and plopping down next to it. He keeps one hand on it as usual. “But make it quick. I have things to do.”  
They don’t make it quick at all, but Kayn ends up staying silent about it.  
Catching up with Rhaast is so much different than they had imagined. He has always been the most passionate amongst all of them and that part of him hasn’t changed one bit. Even when they confirm their shared goal in destroying the world, it’s clear Rhaast intends to enjoy himself all the way to the end. It’s just like him to bond so much with his host as well. Aatrox voices his disapproval but in the end says it is fine, the end of the world will probably not happen in Kayn’s mortal lifetime anyway. They stay silent for a little while after that.  
It hurts to admit how weak they are compared to their former selves. It will undoubtedly take a long time to come anywhere near that, which means more possessions, more fighting, more pain. But... not alone. They have never been alone, and as it turns out they never will be. It’s a sense of relief. Dying alone is awful, but your closest friends dying before you is no better. If their lives would end at the same time, after all else is gone, that is more happiness than anything else this world could offer.  
None of the darkins knew how to go forward from here. Not towards the end of the world, just from this one night. But all of them were thinking the same thing: that for the first time since millennia, the world made a just little more sense.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the inspiration, fellow darkin researcher!


End file.
